Special Programs

Other Affiliate Programs

Glossary

Advertising Fee Rate The percentage of shipped items revenue that you earn for referring sales, prior to the addition of any premiums.

Advertising Fees The sum of base advertising fees and premium fees generated from the sale of products at Amazon.com and its subsidiaries.

Amazon Item An item that is sold and fulfilled by Amazon, not by one of our third-party merchants.

ASIN Short for "Amazon Standard Item Number." Every item in our catalog has a unique 10-digit ASIN. You can find items' ASINs on their product pages under Product Details, along with other information like sales rank and release date. Although Books' ASINs used to be the same as their ISBNs, this is no longer guaranteed because of the introduction of 13-digit ISBNs. See the ISBN-13 FAQ for more information.

Associates Central This Web site. Associates Central offers you a multitude of services, including report- and link-generation tools, a graphics library, and marketing tips.

Associates ID An automatically generated, unique ID that is used to identify your Associates account.

Basic Display Product Link A link to a specific item that is hosted by the Associate. Associates may download an image or use the text description of the product. Most Basic Display Product Links send visitors to a page with product information. A Basic Display Third-Party Link sends visitors to the product's offer listing page, which includes all new and used items offered by individual sellers.

Clicks The number of clicks visitors have made on your Associates links.

Click-through Rate The number of clicks on your links divided by the number of impressions, expressed as a percentage. For example, if your links got 50 clicks for 1000 impressions, your click-through rate would be 50/1000 = 0.05, or 5%. Click-through rate can be used to judge how effective an Amazon link is at generating traffic.

Conversion The number of items shipped divided by the number of clicks on your links, expressed as a percentage. For example, if your links got 200 clicks and those referrals generated 18 shipped items, your conversion would be 18/200=0.09, or 9%.

CSV (Comma Separated Values) A tabular data format in which you can download your reports. In reports downloads from Associates Central, the various values are separated by tabs, not commas, in the resulting text file. See also: TSV (Tab Separated Values).

Earnings Advertising fees earned on completed sales, including premiums.
Earnings Reports Reports that show how much you have earned in advertising fees over a given period of time. Figures are based on items paid for and shipped.

Earnings Summary A quarter-to-date total of items shipped, completed sales, and earnings. Figures are based on items paid for and shipped.

Enhanced Display Product Link A link to a specific item that is served by Amazon and includes the product image, title, best price, new price, and a button so that customers can add the item to their shopping carts.

Favorite Destinations A link that takes a visitor from your Web site to specific featured pages at Amazon, such as Best Sellers, Help, and various category pages.

Home Page Link A link that takes a visitor from your Web site to the Amazon.com home page or the home page of an Amazon subsidiary.

HTML HyperText Markup Language is a text markup language designed for the creation of web pages. The markup supports describing many features of a web page including the formatting of text and the creation of hypertext links.

JavaScript JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. A number of the Associates Program Widgets and Links use JavaScript to create the way they are displayed.

Kindle Kindle is Amazon's new wireless reading device. You can wireless download books, newspapers, magazines and blogs and read them on the Kindles sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.

Listmania Listmania Lists are an Amazon feature that lets you make your own lists of products on Amazon.

Link-Type Reports Reports that show you the performance of the different link types used on your Web site, in terms of clicks, items ordered, items shipped, conversion, and advertising fees.

Link Type We offer numerous ways for you to link from your site to Amazon.com and its subsidiaries. A brief description of each link type is written below. Visit the Build Links section for more information on the different linking methods we offer.

Product Links: Links to detail pages of individual products offered by Amazon or one of our third-party sellers.

Recommended Products Links: Links that are updated every time your Web page loads with new content that matches a product category or keyword you've chosen.

Omakase Links: Links that are updated every time your Web page loads with new content that is personalized for the person viewing your site.

Search Box Links: Links in which users can enter search terms and get Amazon results.

Banner Links: These are links that send customers directly to the Amazon Home Page, an Amazon product category, or feature a special promotional message. Easy Links, which are dynamically updated links, and Home Page links are included in this category.

Text Links: Any link that redirects customers to specific pages on Amazon, such as "Favorite Destinations" and "Link to Any Page" links.

Web Services Links: These include individual product links that make SOAP and HTTP requests; Add-to-Cart buttons that allow visitors to add products to their shopping carts; and, Remote Shopping Cart links that allow visitors to maintain a shopping cart on your site and then transfer to Amazon when they are ready for checkout. Visit our Web Services Applications pages for more information on this powerful linking method.

New Customer An Amazon.com customer who, during the checkout process, enters an e-mail address and password not previously registered with Amazon.com and then pays for and receives a shipment.

Offer Listing Page A product page that lists all the third-party vendors that offer the product and the price each one is charging. If Amazon offers the product itself, it will be included in the list as well. These pages include both new and used products and allow customers to quickly make price comparisons.

Orders Reports Reports that show the items your visitors have ordered and the link types that have worked best. Figures are based on items ordered but not necessarily shipped.

Payee The person or entity to whom we make payments. If you are a resident of the United States and choose to be paid by direct deposit, we will use the bank account information you provided under "Payment Method" when you registered. If you choose to be paid by check, we will make the check payable to the name you provided under "Payee Contact Information" and mail it to that address. If you choose to be paid by gift certificate, we will send them to the account's primary e-mail address. Regardless of payment method, notification that your quarterly statement is available online is sent to the account's primary e-mail address.

Price The amount a customer pays for an item: the list price minus any discount.

Primary E-mail Address The e-mail address of the primary user.

Primary User The user on your account that has the power to select compensation plans, change payment information, and confirm the addition of new users to the account.

Product Detail Page The page where customers read details about a product for sale on Amazon.com (or its subsidiaries), including its name, ASIN, image, price, description, customer reviews, and ordering options. It also includes a link to the offer listing page, which includes offers from third-party sellers as well as Amazon and allows customers to quickly make price comparisons.

Product Link A link that takes a visitor from your Web site to the Amazon detail page of a product you've specifically chosen. These links include Product Links, add-to-cart links, and links constructed using Amazon Web Services. Links that are not considered direct include those to the Amazon.com home page, to search-result pages, to product category pages (e.g. Gourmet Food), and to lists (e.g., Best Sellers). Also excluded are automatically generated Recommended Product Links and Omakase Links. There are two display types for Product Links: Enhanced Display showing extra information in a pop-over when a viewer hovers their mouse over the link, and Basic Display.

Product Link Clicks The number of clicks visitors have made on product links to specific products you've chosen.

Product Link Conversion An indication of how frequently visitors click on product links and then order the featured products. It is calculated by dividing the number of featured items ordered by the number of product link clicks and is expressed as a percentage. For example, if a visitor clicks on one of your product links to a camcorder and then orders it, your Product Link Conversion is 100%. If a second visitor were to click on the camcorder link but order a watch instead, your conversion would drop to 50% (1 item ordered/2 direct-link clicks).
Purchase through aStore If users visiting your aStore make a purchase by adding products to the cart and clicking on the checkout button within aStore, their purchases are shown under "Purchase through aStore"

Quarter Each year is divided into four quarters: Q1 (January 1 to March 31), Q2 (April 1 to June 30), Q3 (July 1 to September 30), and Q4 (October 1 to December 31).

Quarter to Date The period from the first day of the current quarter through today.

Quarter-to-Date Earnings Your total earnings from the first day of the current quarter through yesterday.

Referral Fee Rate The percentage of shipped items revenue that you earn for referring sales, prior to the addition of any premiums.

Referral Fees The sum of base referral fees and premium fees generated from the sale of products at Amazon.com and its subsidiaries.

Referral from aStore If users visit your aStore and click on any link within aStore and then visit Amazon, their purchases at Amazon are reflected under "Referral from aStore".

Refunded Third-party sellers may refund their customers in part or in full for a variety of reasons: their items may have arrived damaged or not at all, the wrong items might have been sent, there may have been a delay in shipping, or the items may have been misrepresented. We mark these items "refunded," not "returned," because we have no way of knowing if products have been returned, only if refunds have been issued.

Returned When customers are dissatisfied with purchases from Amazon, they can return the products to our warehouses for a refund. We mark such items "returned."

Revenue The money paid to Amazon or a third-party vendor for the purchase of products.

Search Box Link A link through which visitors can use Amazon.com's powerful search engine to locate products they're interested in.

Shipped Items Revenue The money paid to Amazon or a third-party vendor for the purchase of products that were actually shipped to customers.

Third-Party Qualifying Product A product that is sold and fulfilled by a third-party vendor and that, according to the terms of the Operating Agreement, qualifies for a advertising fee.

Tracking ID You may request these IDs from Associates Customer Service to track the performance of multiple Web sites or even individual links. Like Associates IDs, they appear in the links you use to refer traffic to Amazon.com or its subsidiaries. Tracking IDs remain associated with your main Associates ID and do not constitute separate accounts.

Widget Widgets are a series of small, easily configurable elements that can be used to feature Amazon.com products and content on blogs, websites and social networking pages.

XML Extensible Markup Language, a programming language that enables us to create files that can easily be shared across systems. You can download your reports in XML, and then transfer this information to your internal applications and systems.

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